Ravens (24 page)

The kid spoke with a fierce intensity: “Because we’ll do what you want anyway.”

Shaw just looked at him. Honored by the kid’s devotion — but also a little wary of it. “Well Jase, I know I can count on
you.
But the others —”

“They won’t fight you,” said Jase. “Even Dad. He won’t fight you no more.”

“Romeo thinks he will.”

“Romeo doesn’t know us! You should stop talking to him. Tell him we don’t need him. We’re fine by ourselves, so tell him to
go away.”

Shaw was thinking of how to answer, how to be gentle but still let the kid know that Romeo wasn’t going anywhere. But just
then he saw Tara come out of the ocean, dragging the net, carrying the last sunlight on her skin, and his powers of speech
left him.

Tara
caught him looking at her. It was no surprise: she knew he wanted her. So now he’s a lewd son of a bitch; who cares, so what
else is new?

What she wasn’t prepared for, however, was the little thrill that his watching gave her. A needlelike pleasure in her stomach,
just below her ribcage. And she realized she was arching her back a little as she came out of the water, to show off her figure.

She dragged her end of the net out of the surf. She and Nell dropped their poles, and squatted and went to work, tossing their
catch into a bucket. She’d known this was coming. She’d felt the tremors a while ago, and now it was opening up inside her,
and in this way also she thought she betrayed the Lord; defied Him and grew apart from Him.

Burris
went to the station to begin his shift, but as he passed the dispatch desk Rose Whittle declared — with offhand cruelty,
not even looking up from the trimming of her cuticles, “Chief wants to see you, Burris. He’s in with the Lieutenant. Good
luck.”

The Lieutenant’s office was a century old, and the ceiling was sixteen feet high. The smells were of ancient varnish and stucco
and moldering police files, of termite crap and generations of tobacco smoke. Generally Burris liked coming here. The Lieutenant
was fat and moved slowly and was nearly as old as Burris himself, and remembered far more. And he loved to talk; you could
wallow in his talk. You might come to discuss some little complication in a DUI case and then wander out a couple of hours
later with a headful of details about the ’71 Cal Humphries murder, or the mad misrule of Chief Carswell in the eighties —
and then realize you’d forgotten even to mention the case you went in for.

But today it wasn’t just the Lieutenant. The Chief was there too, and he had a nasty twinkle in his eye. “Hello, Corporal.”

“Hello, sir.”

“Guess who called me a little while ago?”

A guessing game. Great.

“Sir, I just don’t know.”

“Mitch Boatwright called me.”

“Oh.”

“Wondering why the hell you were harassing him at his church.”

Christ. Better hunch my shoulders. Get low here, try to get as gray and mouselike as possible. “Well sir. I just —”

“At his
church
? You couldn’t wait till the service was over?”

“Well, I
did
wait, yes sir, but —”

“I’m sorry, is he a liar? I wouldn’t have thought Mitch Boatwright was a big liar.”

“If I could explain. I did go up to him at church this morning —”

“I thought you just said you didn’t.”

“I came up
after
the service. So if he says —”

“In front of three hundred parishioners, you accosted the man —”

“I spoke privately, sir.”

“Corporal.” Sharply, crisply, as one might admonish a wayward pup. “You intend to keep interrupting me all day?”

“No sir.”

“I’m trying to ask you a question.”

“Yes sir.”

“I’m trying to ask you, Corporal, why you couldn’t wait until Mr. Boatwright was at home?”

“At home? Well. There’s all those people there. There’s TV trucks and all. I didn’t want to raise a ruckus —”

“You ever think of using the phone?”

“Well, the business I had with him was kind of delicate.”

“Delicate? He says you grilled him.”

“I wouldn’t say grilled.”

“Oh no?”

“And we didn’t talk at church. I arranged to meet him later, at the Huddle House.”

“I understand that, Corporal. I’ve been informed of that. I think it’s terrific. Great police work, taking your interrogation
out of the church. Although the Huddle House, now, is that really your best choice for a ‘delicate’ interrogation?”

“Well I didn’t feel —”

“Please don’t interrupt. Mr. Boatwright says you wouldn’t let him leave? He says you made all these accusations, and you weren’t
even in uniform, and you were acting a little crazy, he says, and you were —”

“I didn’t make any accusations, sir. I was trying to
protect
him, not to —”

“May I
finish
?”

“Yes sir. I’m sorry sir.”

Long pause, harrowing. The Chief glanced at the Lieutenant. The Lieutenant hung his head sadly.

Said the Chief, “Mr. Boatwright says you’ve got this notion that Shaw McBride is extorting money from him. Is that what you
think?”

“That’s what I
thought
.”

“But now you’ve changed your mind?”

“Well, now I’m not sure what —”

“This was another of your little half-cocked schemes?”

“I did have genuine reason for concern. I had a tip.”

“Ah,” said the Chief. “A tip! And what might that tip have been, Corporal?”

“Well, that Shaw McBride didn’t even know about the jackpot till
after
the Boatwrights won it.”

The Chief glowered. “That’s it? That’s what you got?”

“Yes. I thought I had to check it out. But, well, I talked to Mr. Boatwright and now I think there was probably no merit to
it.”

“You mean your ‘tipster’ was lying?”

“It’s possible. But still I had to check it out.”

The Chief let out a sigh of exasperation.

“Burris, let’s get something straight. Have I ever told you
not
to check out tips?”

“No, sir. I didn’t mean that. I meant —”

“I sometimes wonder, Corporal, when I’m talking to you, if I should even be in the room. I mean, as you seem to be able to
carry out the whole conversation without my help at all. You
imagine
I say something, and you answer, and then you
imagine
I say something else, and you reply to that. I’d appreciate it if now and then you’d check in with me, to see if what you
think I’m saying bears any correspondence to what I really
am
saying. How about that?”

“Yes sir.”

“In this city, Corporal, we’re very big about checking out tips. But we try to do it without making one of our oldest families
feel like they’re the subject of some kind of crazy witch hunt.”

“Yes sir.”

The Chief then turned to the Lieutenant. “What are your thoughts here, Jim?”

The Lieutenant looked uneasy. His eyebrows flew out jaggedly from his brow. He said, “Chief, I think you hit the nail right
on the head.”

“Good,” said the Chief.

“Though in fairness, it was a sticky situation, and Burris was only trying his best, you know, and —”

“Oh, that’s true,” said the Chief. “I have to give you that, Corporal. You always do ‘try your best’.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You try your damnedest.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“But next time? How about consulting with one of us or one of the detectives before you follow these leads. OK?”

“Yes, sir.”

“ ’Cause if you don’t? I will fire your ass, and I don’t give a damn if you’ve vested your goddamn pension or not. Do you
understand me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You can go.”

“Thank you sir.”

“Catch some drunks for us, OK, Deppity Dawg? That’s something you do very well.”

Tara
took a shower to wash the sand off, and then retreated to her room. She looked at her email. More of the deluge. Kudos and
congratulations by the thousands. She kept scrolling through the list, though she didn’t know what she was seeking. A note
from Clio? Though had she found one, she wouldn’t have been able to read it.

Then an address caught her eye.

A message from Dad. Posted just a few minutes ago. She tapped OPEN.

Hon I’m going to tell the fbi. Ive been thinking a lot. I don’t trust that burrus. I know i did the right thing lying to him,
but the fbi wont be fools. Theyll track the calls that Shaw makes. They got gps on cell phones now so therfore theyll find
Romeo easy and catch him. And shaw too. They’ll kill them clean. But if we wait till soembody makes a mistake or Romeo goes
crazy or some reporter guesses something we will all die can’t sit and wait for that. I love you more than the world. The
BIBLE says watch ye, stand fast in the faith, be strong.

It wasn’t just fear that rose up in her then, but anger also. She hit REPLY and wrote:

Dad,

The FBI, they screw up all the time. People get killed. If you tell them, you’ll get US killed! Daddy, dont! if they make
one mistake! we will LOSE. But if we play along with Shaw and let him have the money we’ll be OK. He wont hurt us. If he hurts
us, he knows he’ll lose everything, but if we push him he’ll have nothing to lose.

Dad, I know how much you hate him. I hate him worse. When he opens his mouth I get sick. He thinks now hes some kind of prophet
but people only love him for the money and hes a coward. But once he gets the money he’ll try to run and that’s when we’ll
call th4e FBI. He won’t get away! I know its frustrating doing nothing, but please, Dad, please don’t try to tell the FBI.
Please please please.

She reread, made a few corrections, deleted the number 4. She put
please please please
in caps.

She knew that by writing this she was doing exactly what Shaw would want. She was even starting to sound like him:
I know it’s frustrating.

She pressed SEND.

She waited. Every few seconds, a new email came in from one of her fans. She didn’t touch them. She stared at the screen.

Finally she got a reply:

OK

As she was looking at this, she heard some commotion outside. A flurry of flashbulbs.

She cracked the curtain. A crowd had gathered around Bill Phillips, the man with ‘reflex sympathetic dystrophy’. He was no
longer in his wheelchair; he was walking — sort of. With someone on either side to steady him. And he went only a few steps
before they eased him back into the chair.

The folks loved it though. They shouted “Praise the Lord!” and looked toward the house and called to him, “Shaw!” “Father!”
“Father, come see this!” “Praise the Lord!”

Tara felt another wave of anger.

Now they
worship
him?

She lay down in her bed. She felt as though she had not slept in weeks. But as soon as she shut her eyes she had a vivid picture
of herself stepping out of the ocean, with Shaw McBride watching her.

She forced her eyes open again.

Out in the yard the pilgrims were calling his name: “Shaw!” “Shaw!” “Father!”

Her eyes fell shut again. She was on the beach, coming into Shaw’s arms. She had no strength to resist him. The power he held
over her life had damaged her. She imagined him lifting her up. She wrapped her legs around him, with her head against his
chest so she could hear the beating of his heart, and his cock was inside her. She started touching herself, feathering her
clitoris with two fingers. She couldn’t stop; she needed to touch herself while she thought of his strength, and she was trembling
and bathed in sweat, and as she started to climax she could hear all those voices outside.

“Shaw!” “Father!” “Lord!” “Father, heal me!” “Heal me!” “Praise the Lord!”

Romeo
sat in the McDonald’s on the Scranton Connector Road near the mall. He’d come for the Wifi. He sat with fries and a Coke
while he consulted the keylogger he’d planted. It had picked up an email from Mitch to his daughter.

Now why should Mitch be sending an email to his daughter? It gave Romeo a bad feeling, even before he read it. And after he
read it, he was crushed. It broke his heart.

He stared out the window at the kids tumbling in the playhouse.

Trying to summon some strength. That he had known this was coming didn’t help. He thought,
Why
are you so stupid, Mitch? Is it that you can’t see the horror that’s looming over us? This is your
family
you’re risking. How can you risk the lives of your family for the sake of your wounded pride?

And Clio! How can you do this to Clio?

He forced himself to turn back to the laptop and read Tara’s reply.

Shaw
had seen Diane Sawyer on TV a thousand times, and what had attracted him the most was the sense that beneath all her sweetness
and generosity were the depths of the Arctic Sea. But close up it was different — it wasn’t iciness he felt from her, but
a kind of steady imperial radiance. She sat on one of the wing chairs, with Tara and Mitch and Patsy on the couch, and Jase
on the floor. Shaw sat across from her in the other wing chair. Her gaze floated from one Boatwright to another, and finally
back to him, and she spoke in that dry murmur: